PATNA: A day after all the three MLAs of Vikassheel Insan Party (VIP) joined the BJP, party chief Mukesh Sahani on Thursday refused to resign from the post of Bihar cabinet minister stating that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has to take a decision on it and he will abide by his orders.
VIP is part of the BJP-Nitish Kumar led Janata Dal (United) government in Bihar.
Addressing a press conference in Patna, the VIP chief said that his political life has been full of struggle and he is ready to fight till his last breath.
"My good wishes are with those three MLAs who were with us till yesterday and have joined another party (BJP) now. Our 3 MLAs made their total to 77 MLAs, they became the number one party of Bihar, I congratulate them," said Sahani.
When asked about his resignation from the ministerial post, the VIP chief said, "My resignation is the prerogative of CM Nitish Kumar, so I will do as he says. CM Nitish Kumar has to decide who will be a minister in his government. Remove me if you want."
Accusing the leaders of Bihar BJP, he said that there was a conspiracy to break him from the very beginning.
"Whenever I have tried to move forward, I am a knock in the eyes of the people. I have not done any mistake by contesting the UP elections. I will fight till my last breath for my people but Sanjay Jaiswal lied a lot," said Sahani.
He said that BJP Bihar chief Sanjay Jaiswal had no knowledge of the VIP-BJP alliance and has lied a lot.
"After talking to the BJP high command, I formed an alliance. Sanjay Jaiswal was not even standing outside the room then. What Sanjay Jaiswal and other BJP leaders are saying, if Union Home Minister Amit Shah says the same thing, then I will accept it. The party which becomes the single largest party by snatching the MLAs of others , that party does not have the right to demand my resignation on moral grounds," he said.
Sahni further said in 2020, when he joined the government under the leadership of Nitish Kumar, the people could not digest it.
"BJP got angry because I demanded reservation of Nishad society in SC or ST category. BJP got angry with us for demanding caste census. I am the son of Nishad. I will continue to fight for the rights of my society. I am the son of Mallah. BJP will know that I have huge public support behind me. I will continue to fight for the most backward till my last breath. I am not afraid of anyone. People want me to do what they say but I am not one of those who do so," he said.
Sahni further said that if he had accepted the conditions of BJP and bowed down, then his party would not have broken.
"It is the habit of BJP to cheat its allies. Bihar has a by-election in Bochahan. We will fight and win. This was my seat in NDA but BJP fielded a candidate from here. We fought against BJP in Uttar Pradesh. We will fight where it is needed. I will not disclose what was my deal during the time of alliance with the BJP. Amit Shah knows. If the deal is disclosed, it will not be good for the country," he added.
The VIP chief said that he has been struggling since the age of 18. "I knew that anything can happen in this fight, people took the decision they wanted to make but I will keep working for the people," he said.
In a major setback to Mukesh Sahani's Vikassheel Insan Party, all of its three MLAs joined the BJP on Wednesday. Notably, Sahani who is now left as the only representative from his party as an MLC, is the sitting Minister in the Bihar government led by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and has shown rebellious colours in the past.
The three MLAs who quit the VIP and joined the BJP are Raju Singh, Mishri Lal Yadav, and Swarna Singh.
Sahani was blindsided on a day he was busy helping his party candidate Geeta Devi file nomination papers for by-election to the Bochahan assembly seat which has fallen vacant upon the death of VIP MLA Musafir Paswan.
The day also marked the filing of nominations by the two other significant candidates, BJP's Baby Kumari and RJD's Amar Paswan, who is the son of the late Bochahan MLA and changed sides after realising that the VIP chief was faced with an insurmountable political crisis.
In the evening, Swarna Singh, Mishri Lal Yadav and Raju Kumar Singh, all of them elected in 2020 as VIP candidates, met Speaker Vijay Kumar Sinha informing him that they wished to be merged with the BJP.
The speaker issued the notification in this regard, thereby making the BJP the largest in the assembly in terms of numerical strength.
The party now has 77 MLAs, two more than Lalu Prasad's RJD, the principal opposition party.
Emerging from the speaker's chamber, the MLAs told reporters that they were "returning to their home" as they had all been previously associated with the BJP.
They also said that Sahani's confrontational stance towards the BJP was "suicidal".
Sahani, a former Bollywood set designer, had floated his party in November, 2018 and joined the RJD-led Grand Alliance soon afterward but left just ahead of the 2020 assembly polls, alleging that leader of the opposition Tejashwi Yadav was giving him a raw deal in sharing of seats.
He was inducted into the NDA at the instance of the BJP after a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
In the elections, his party won four seats though Sahani lost his own.
Nonetheless, the BJP backed him and helped him earn a place in the Nitish Kumar cabinet.
However, he seemed to have entered his formidable former patron's bad books after his foray into the Uttar Pradesh elections where the inexperienced politician contested around 50 seats and virulently attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
He tied himself into more knots by fielding candidates against the BJP in seven legislative council seats where polls are due next month and failed to see the writing on the wall when the saffron party struck back, unilaterally announcing Baby Kumari's candidature in an obvious snub to Sahani.
The NDA in Bihar also includes Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD(U) and ex-CM Jitan Ram Manjhi's Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM).
JD(U) sources have indicated that they treated the crisis as "a matter between BJP and Sahani" and the HAM, a small outfit with four MLAs, is expected to follow the same line.
The minister, who holds fishery and animal husbandry portfolio, finds himself in a quandary as his own term in the legislative council where he won a seat vacated by a BJP MLC ends in July.
(With PTI Inputs)